I was told epilepsy drug wouldn't harm my baby. Now we live with the consequences
BBCRosemary Nayler says she was repeatedly told that taking the epilepsy drug sodium valproate while pregnant would not affect her unborn child.
But it is thought thousands of children in the UK have been left with disabilities caused by the medication since the 1970s.
Her daughter, Nadia Williams, is now 37, registered blind and deaf, is autistic and has mobility issues.
Nayler is among thousands of parents calling for the government to "admit where they've gone wrong".
The mother, from Evesham in Worcestershire, had her first epilepsy attack when she was about 30, she said.
"I'd already got three young children by this stage who were all born perfectly normal and quite happy and have developed no problems throughout their lives. They're all way into their 50s now."
But by the time she became pregnant with Nadia, aged 34, in the late 1980s, she was already taking sodium valproate on the advice of doctors.
"Every time I had an epileptic attack I was told that it was 'far better for me to... keep on taking the tablets' and they just kept increasing the dosage.
"We queried... if it was going to affect the foetus in any way and we were clearly told that 'no, there was no effect on the children'."
Nayler said that when her daughter was born "she appeared to have developmental lateness, [compared]... to the three sons that I already had".
"Then I became pregnant two years later with another daughter, by which time we were really noticing the differences [in Nadia].
"So we again asked the doctors and again were told that 'no, there would be no problems'."
The mother said it was not until a different doctor concluded she was taking too high a dose for a pregnant woman that she "started to look into things".
The mother and daughter spoke to BBC Hereford & Worcester ahead of a TV documentary, Mums v Big Pharma, which the BBC stated "reveals, for the first time, the 'David v Goliath' battle as... [two mothers] search for answers".
'I'll be on my own'
Nayler, 72, said she wanted "the government to admit where they've gone wrong, the fact that we should have been told about these things and these possibilities way back then".
Her daughter added she was "terrified of the future".
"[If] my mum goes, I have no other system. [I've] got two older brothers, but [they've] got their own families. I lost my sister... a couple of years ago to cancer.
"The last thing I wanna do is end up in a care home, stuck in a corner somewhere waiting for my time to come."
Her mother explained her daughter lived on her own with support, but "take that support away, not just from myself, but from people around her... and she won't be able to live on her own".
The Department of Health and Social Care said it recognised the impact sodium valproate had had on women and their families and was "carefully considering" recommendations within two reports.
Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety Dame Diana Johnson has said the government was "working with the NHS to put in place a range of measures" to support women and their families, "alongside action to strengthen the safe prescribing of sodium valproate".
Speaking in the Commons last month, she stated the number of women who had been prescribed it had gone down since 2018.
A "foetal exposure to medicines pilot service" had been operating in hospitals in Manchester and Newcastle and the project was providing "assessments, diagnosis and treatment planning", Dame Diana added.
She stated "on prevention, NHS England and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency have introduced strict measures to minimise valproate exposure during pregnancy".
Mums v Big Pharma will be shown on BBC Two at 21:00 GMT on Monday and is available on BBC iPlayer.
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